This invention relates to reservation systems for goods and services, and, in particular, to a system for reserving available inventory under the control of the inventory holder, while providing access to their inventory through Internet communication networks.
Various inventory control and reservation systems are employed for goods and services. The present invention will be described with primary reference to the reservation of accommodations, such as hotel and motel rooms. However, it will be readily apparent that the present reservation systems may be used in a wide variety of applications wherein an inventory is made available for local, on-site transactions and remotely made available through telecommunications networking and the Internet in particular. Accordingly, the system may be used for entertainment and sporting activities, vehicle rentals, tour packages and like activities wherein the inventory demand arises on site or off-site, contemporaneously or subsequently.
The accommodations sector, particularly motels and hotels, has changed in recent time. Whereas previously local, independently operated establishments were predominant and made reservations at point of sale, chains and franchises operating nationally under a common name have become predominant. In order to serve more fully the national market, such businesses have employed a central reservation system accessed through toll free numbers. Typically, a central reservation system has been used in conjunction with a local system at the site of the inventory to sell available inventory. Therein, the local system assesses the local market, retains a portion of the inventory for local sale, and transfer the remaining inventory to the central reservation systems for distribution. This creates an open looped system wherein the two blocks of inventory are processed independently, each under the control of an autonomous administrator and neither having contemporaneous information on the overall state of the local inventory. While the central system status may be queried by the local site, reallocation of the central inventory is difficult and requires manual intervention through conventional communication sources, typically person-to-person phone conversations. In such systems, the central system will book reservations only until depletion, thereafter declining reservations even though inventory remains available at the local site. Further, the local site cannot accept reservations in excess of the local allotment even though the central system has uncommitted inventory. As a result, the local system may operate at under capacity.
In such a setting and operation, the typical central reservation system is a closed system. Only authorized personnel can query the data and procure the inventory. The communication between the event vendor and the central reservation system is usually done via a dedicated data line on a permanently connected or intermittently connected basis. This effectively limits the accessibility of the data to only those authorized few and, in the case of intermittent systems, not in real time.
Various approaches have been under taken to overcome the above limitations while affording some of the features achieved with the present invention.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,319,548 to Germain discloses an interactive system that collects and analyzes golf information that is recorded on individual golf play recording cards. The recording cards also store course information such as weather conditions, etc., for the use of individual players. This system also can be set up to be a central database for storing tee-time reservations for courses worldwide.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,422,809 to Griffin et al. discloses a system providing travel destination information and making travel destinations. The system includes an information storage and retrieval system for storing, referencing, and retrieving various travel destinations from a database. This type system includes individual kiosk screens. However, the individual screens are connected to a central database that stores the information and the system can then access individual travel destinations to make reservations. The system is controlled by the central database to the exclusion of the local site.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,581,461 to Coll et al. discloses a central reservation system that manages data shared among a central database and a number of remote databases. This system is an example of the aforementioned central reservation system, with a central database that store various reservation information and is linked to several travel destinations, rather than the central database being located in the travel destination itself
U.S. Pat. No. 5,732,398 to Tagawa discloses a self-service system for selling travel-related services or products. However, this system uses a database that searches all available products, essentially taking the place of a travel agent, and is not linked directly between the local inventory site and the end user.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,797,126 to Helbling et al. discloses an automated system of viewing and dispensing theater tickets. This system acts like a central reservation system communicating directly with the consumer. All of the consumer""s actions must be processed through the central station before processing with the theater.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,864,818 to Feldman discloses a system of an automated hotel reservation processing method and system. This system acts as a central reservation system in that the hotel receives reservations from a separate terminal that is accessed by travel agents or other authorized users.
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 5,901,287 to Bull discloses a system of aggregating and synthesizing data gathered from disparate sources such as those available on a network of the Internet type. This system is more of a user profile synthesizing system that tracks a user""s on-line activities for individually tailored network use, rather than a system of collecting reservation data at specific establishments.
In view of the foregoing limitations, the present invention has been developed to provide a system in which the event vendor""s entire inventory resides at and is controlled at the local point of sale site. Rather than the vendor giving up control and sending its inventory to a central reservation system for eventual sale, the vendor itself maintains control of its inventory at its own location and allows access to the data to whomever it decides, rather than only authorized users of a central reservation system. Once the inventory is sold through one of many networked affiliations, a local transaction removes the item from available inventory both on-site and off-site. Thus, the present invention has been developed to allow event vendors to maintain their current reservation practices and control their inventory while providing access to their inventory by anyone with Internet access.
Herein, the event vendor uses a local event owner server to allocate, control and reserve their inventory at their place of business. The local server communicates over an Internet network to an active, remotely located reservation server. The reservation server maintains data on an Internet-based reservation systems and provides networked access to consumers therethrough to provide access to the inventory. Thus, the event vendor maintains total control over the local inventory while allowing access to that inventory by a much larger audience, namely anyone using Internet-based reservation systems that are available on the Internet. Upon confirming purchase of an inventory item, the local event server removes the item from the local server and accesses the reservation server to make a corresponding deduction.
The present invention thus provides method for operating a system for locally and remotely reserving the purchase of goods and services using a local event server located at a local site and a reservation server with replicated data at a remote site using Internet connections. The local event server maintains an inventory of available goods and services and designates a rate structure for each of said goods and services. The local server allocates a portion of the inventory as reservation server inventory and transfer such data to the reservation server. The reservation server through web sites of their desired format makes the allocated inventory available to consumers through secondary Internet connections. The reservation server receives from consumers prospective reservations for discrete items and relevant consumer information. The reservation server communicates the prospective reservations to the local server. The local server accepts the prospective reservations and removes the items from the reservation inventory and establishes an adjusted reservation server inventory. The local server creates a confirmation and communicates the adjusted reservation server inventory and said confirmation to the reservation server; which communicates the confirmation to the consumer on an Internet connection.
In view of the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide a reservations system that allows an event vendor""s inventory to reside and be controlled at the point of sale through a local event server.
Another object of the present invention is to allow access of an event vendor""s inventory to anyone using Internet-based reservation systems (web sites) through an active reservation server, while the event vendor maintains control of its inventory at the point of sale.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a local event server that has the capability to continue to operate should the connection to the active reservation server be lost, where the event vendor can continue point of sale reservation practices.